The Psychology of Enforced Mobility

Abstract

One of the earliest accounts of the psychological and social issues faced by refugees is Kraus’s pre-war study of forced new settlers fleeing to the USA from Nazi Germany The analysis is interesting from a number of standpoints, but none more so than its title, ‘Starting life anew in a strange country’. For many this phrase will capture something of the motivation for flight, and perhaps also the challenge, of the forced new settler. But it also suggests common misconceptions regarding the experience of flight, refuge and settlement. “ Fleeing for one’s life” is in part an act of personal, physical survival. But it also carries with it the potential for once more – or perhaps for the first time – being able to shape one’s story, to (re)construct identity, trajectory and meaning. This life, however, seldom involves “starting life anew”, as it brings with it experiences that are a foundation for the future. Furthermore, the “strangeness” of the country seldom turns out to be the major determinant of wellbeing and settlement. In this chapter we seek to present historical and current conceptualizations of the experience of forced new settlers that draw together the contribution of psychological, social, economic and political factors. We illustrate these with respect to a number of discrete case studies of specific contexts of enforced migration. Firstly, we look at Mozambican refugees in Malaŵi from 1988 to 1992 and discuss our survey conducted across two very distinctive areas: one comprising refugee camps in Mangochi District and the other integrated settlements – Mozambicans living alongside Malaŵians in existing villages – in Ntcheu District. One of the most valuable insights from this work was recognition of the potential value of a psychological perspective on a humanitarian discourse, which to this point had been dominated by other social sciences. Secondly, we discuss work done following a volcanic eruption in Montserrat. The focus here was on the one-third of the population who remained on the island, internally displaced onto harsh, previously sparsely populated land to the north of the island. A situational analysis suggested that distress was most tangibly linked to the loss of human, social and cultural resources rather than to acute exposures to overwhelming events. Thirdly, we look at unaccompanied young people seeking asylum in Scotland. Reflecting the themes of the Psychological Working Group (PWG) framework, support spanned developing human capital (support to enter educational or vocational programmes), social capital (providing a reliable source of social support and opportunities to extend networking as people settled into the city) and cultural capital (using an art exhibition and a music video project to explore shared values and aspiration as young people displaced to the city). Finally, we seek to draw together some practical outworkings of such analysis in work with refugees and other forced migrants.

My home is in Mozambique, but I can’t be free there

(Mozambican refugee, Malaŵi, 1991).

I came from a place where everyone knows my name, to a place where no one knows me at all. Sometimes I hear people calling my name in the neighborhood where I live but I find out that it’s only the wind

(Somali refugee woman, Canada, 1994).

It is hard when people don’t understand why you left your home. They think you came for bettering things, something like that. You are more miserable here than you were at home – it makes you feel the burden very heavy

(Rwandan refugee, Scotland, 2002).

Newspapers and politicians say we should go home. Do you think that if our home was safe, we would want to come here? No. We would be in our home. One day I hope to go home and build a place where homeless people can go

(young refugee, London, 2002).